crossed, perhaps the better to exhibit a very well-rounded instep, which shone forth in all the splendour of French varnish; his travelling-cap jauntily thrown on one side so as to display to better advantage his perfumed locks, that floated in a graceful manner somewhat lengthily on his neck; the shawl around his neck having so much of negligence as to show that the splendid enamel pin that fastened it was a thing of little moment to the wearer. All were in keeping with the nonchalant ease and self-satisfaction of his look, as with half-drooping lids he surveyed the deck, caressing with his jewelled fingers the silky line of his moustache, and evidently enjoying in his inmost soul the triumphant scene of conquest his very appearance excited. Indeed, a less practised observer than himself could not fail to remark the unequivocal evidences the lady portion of the community bore to his success. The old ones looked boldly at him with that fearless intrepidity that characterises conscious security; their property was insured, and they cared not how near the fire came to them. The very young participated in the sentiment from an opposite reason; theirs was the unconsciousness of danger. But there was a middle term, what Balzac calls 'la femme de trente ans'; and she either looked over the bulwarks, or at the funnel, or on her book-anywhere, in short, but at our friend, who appeared to watch this studied denial on her part with the same kind of enjoyment the captain of a frigate would contemplate the destruction his broadsides were making on his enemy's rigging; and perhaps the latter never deemed his conquest more assured by the hauling down of the enemy's colours than did the Honourable Jack when a let-down veil convinced him that the lady could bear no more.

I should like to have watched the proceedings on deck, where, although no acquaintance had yet been formed, the indications of such were clearly visible. The alderman's daughters evincing a decided preference for walking on that side where Jack was standing-he studiously per

forming some small act of courtesy from time to time as they passed, removing a seat, kicking any small fragment of rope, etc.; but the motion of the packet warned me that note-taking was at an end, and the best thing I could do would be to 'compose' myself.

'What's the number, sir?' said the steward, as I staggered down the companion.

'I have got no berth,' said I mournfully.

'A dark horse, not placed,' said the Honourable Jack, smiling pleasantly as he looked after me, while I threw myself on a sofa, and cursed the sea.

CHAPTER II

THE PASSPORT-A PERILOUS ADVENTURE-MINE
HOST OF THE 'BOAR'S HEAD'

IF the noise and bustle which attend a wedding, like trumpets in a battle, are intended as provisions against reflection, so firmly do I feel that the tortures of sea-sickness are meant as antagonists to all the terrors of drowning and all the horrors of shipwreck.

Let him who has felt the agonies of that internal earthquake which the 'pitch and toss' motion of a ship communicates, who knows what it is to have his diaphragm vibrating between his ribs and the back of his throat, confess how little to him was all the confusion which he listened to overhead, how poor the interest he took in the welfare of the craft wherein he was 'only a lodger,' and how narrowed were all his sympathies within the small circle of bottled porter and brandy and water, the steward's infallibles in suffering.

I lay in my narrow crib, moodily pondering over these things; now wondering within myself what charms of travel could recompense such agonies as these; now muttering a curse, 'not loud, but deep,' on the heavy gentleman whose ponderous tread on the quarter-deck

seemed to promenade up and down the surface of my own pericranium. The greasy steward, the jolly captain, the brown-faced, black - whiskered king's messenger, who snored away on the sofa, all came in for a share of my maledictions, and I took out my cares in curses upon the whole party. Meanwhile I could distinguish, amid the other sounds, the elastic tread of certain light feet that pattered upon the quarter-deck, and I could not mistake the assured footstep which accompanied them; nor did I need the happy roar of laughter that mixed with the noise to satisfy myself that the Honourable Jack was then cultivating the alderman's daughters, discoursing most eloquently upon the fascinations of those exclusive circles wherein he was wont to move, and explaining, on the clearest principles, what a frightful chasm his absence must create in the London world-how deplorably flat the season would go off, where he was no actor-and wondering who among the aspirants of high ambition would venture to assume his line of character and supply his place, either on the turf or at the table.

But at length the stage of semi-stupor came over me; the noises became commixed in my head, and I lost all consciousness so completely that, whether from brandy or sickness, I fancied I saw the steward flirting with the ladies, and the Honourable Jack skipping about with a white apron, uncorking porter bottles, and changing sixpences.

The same effect which the announcement of dinner produces on the stiff party in the drawing-room is caused by the information of being alongside the quay to the passengers of a packet. It is true the procession is not so formal in the latter as in the former case. The turbaned dowagers that take the lead in one would more than probably be last in the other; but what is lost in decorum is more than made up in hilarity. What hunting for carpet-bags! what opening and shutting of lockers!

what researches into portmanteaus to extricate certain seizable commodities and stow them away upon the person of the owner, till at last he becomes an impersonation of smuggling, with lace in his boots, silk stockings in his hat, brandy under his waistcoat, and jewelry in the folds of his cravat! There is not an item in the tariff that might not be demonstrated in his anatomy. From his shoes to his nightcap he is a living sarcasm upon the revenue. And, after all, what is the searching scrutiny of your Quarterly Reviewer to the all-penetrating eye of an excise officer! He seems to look into the whole contents of your wardrobe before you have unlocked the trunk' warranted solid leather,' and with a glance appears to distinguish the true man from the knave, knowing, as if by intuition, the precise number of cambric handkerchiefs that befit your condition in life, and whether you have transgressed the bounds of your station by a single bottle of Eau de Cologne.

What admirable training for a novelist would a year or two spent in such duties afford! what singular views of life, what strange people must he see! how much of narrative would even the narrow limits of a hat-box present to him; and how naturally would a story spring from the rosy-cheeked old gentleman, paying his duty upon a pâté de foie gras, to his pretty daughter, endeavouring by a smile to diminish the tariff on her French bonnet, and actually captivate a custom-house officer by the charms of her robe à la Victorine.

6

The French douaniers are droll fellows, and are the only ones I have ever met who descend from the important gravity of their profession and venture upon a joke. I shall never forget entering Valenciennes late one night, with a large diligence' party, among which was a corpulent countryman of my own, making his first Continental tour. It was in those days when a passport presented a written portrait of the bearer; when the shape of your nose, the colour of your hair, the cut of